More or less this is where I will be posting the story I have taken to calling "Rose and Claws", as you can tell I am not a terribly imaginative individual but it is what it is.
For those who just stumbled on this and have no idea what is going on, this story is based after the plot of the Bandai Namco game Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, so theres the same characters, vehicles and locations as the ones we see in Strangereal. This is a work of fan-fiction, which means its not cannon and the standards are far lower then that of an actual game
For those who don't know who I am, I am u/AWACS_Bandog from reddit's r/AceCombat community. essentially all I do is shit-post and write this story. Its not much but it keeps me busy enough between actual life stuff.
The reason I took to using Blogger of all places is because its a tool i'm familiar with more or less. I'm admittedly a Luddite when it comes to the more mainstream fan-fiction tools.
All in all, I present the Prologue to our story Rose and Claws with the story I posted a month or so back on reddit titled
The Interview
“Miss D’Elise?”
The roar of jets, a cacophony of violence interspersed between thousands of trails crossing in the blue sky. She saw it all. She caused it all.
The roar of jets, a cacophony of violence interspersed between thousands of trails crossing in the blue sky. She saw it all. She caused it all.
She watched as her country and people tore itself apart.
She watched her friends die, her family get killed and her
citizens suffer. All these events culminating in the images burned into her
mind.
One moment stuck out to her. She watched a fighter, with a
slashed-out Rose emblem, get in a strange dance with another with the roundel
of the Osean Air Force. She watched the
Osean chase the Erusean, matching him turn for turn until the Erusean jet seemingly
cartwheeled behind the Osean and tore him apart with his gun before the Osean
pilot realized he had been outmatched. The Radical didn’t have much time to
celebrate however as she saw another fighter, also bearing an Erusean Rose,
shoot down the victor with a missile. She watched the explosion blossom in the
air and followed the trail as the radical plummeted towards the sea.
“Miss D’Elise?” The voice asked again. Suddenly she was
back.
No longer was she on the main concourse of the Space
Elevator, she was in a small room. Under the custody of the Osean Military.
“Are you alright?” the man across from her asked with a hint
of concern. She studied him for a moment. He was of average height and build,
with a stereotypical military high and tight, his brown hair started greying at
the sides and there were wrinkles forming on his face, betraying his age. He
wore the same uniform that all the other Osean Air Force officers wore, a dark
blue service coat with light blue shirt. Though the man lacked a nameplate, she
noticed his rank insignia and awards adorning his chest. The one that stuck out
was the pilots wings above where his name should have been.
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry, can you start over?” she
replied.
The officer in front of her sighed opening a folder that
laid in front of him
“Miss D’Elise the reason we asked you here today was for
your testimony of the events of ‘Operation Daredevil’ on the afternoon of thirty-one,
October, twenty nineteen. So, if you could start at the beginning of why
exactly you were there?”
She sighed for a moment, brushing her skirt and taking a
breath to compose herself before beginning her tale.
“Well, I don’t exactly know how far back you need me to go? Do
you need the whole story or the day?”
“Whatever you feel comfortable with” the Officer replied trying
to reassure her.
“Ok. My name is Rosa Cossette D’Elise, heiress to the
Erusean throne and Princess of Erusea. I was present at the Lighthouse during
the events you described, yes. The Event that put me there happened one month
prior. On September nineteenth, your Military began their assault on my home of
Farbanti. Fearing for my life, my father put me on one of our remaining liaison
aircraft and had me sent away before your military seized the airfields.” She
paused for a moment, trying to maintain composure. “That. That was the last
time I saw my Father. I am led to believe he was killed shortly thereafter in
an Airstrike by your forces.” She
locked eyes with the officer, she took some solace in making him visibly
uncomfortable.
“Well Ma’am, I don’t have the exact details of casualties
from Operation -“ He briefly stammered noticeably unnerved now.
“I don’t care. I don’t care what he did, or what your
excuses are. I just know my daddy is dead and I didn’t really get to say
goodbye.” She shot back bitterly.
There was a brief pause before she continued.
“For the next few weeks, and following the communications
breakdowns, my remaining aids had me moved from place to place, never staying
for more then a day or two. I Believe our hope was to find refuge in a natural
country. That was until the sixth of October”
She replayed the events over and over in her nightmares ever
since.
She watched in horror as the fighters that took over for
escort opened fire on her aircraft. She watched helplessly as bullets tore
through the fuselage, hitting passengers and crew, killing many instantly. She
stared dumbstruck as one engine became entirely engulfed in flames and she
watched in terror as the ground of Tyler island closed way to quickly,
somewhere in it all she could hear a scream, but she could not place if it was
her voice or that of another passenger.
She didn’t notice the officer was now standing staring at
her, his discomfort replaced by a look of concern.
“Your Highness, I understand if you would like to
discontinue” he spoke softly.
She realized she started breathing heavily. She took another
moment to compose herself. She wiped a tear from her cheek.
“On the Sixth, we were flying to Tyler Island, supposedly a
stronghold of Loyalists to my father was located there. We couldn’t have been
more wrong. I watched as fighters bearing Erusean markings shot my plane down.
The only survivors were myself and my dog. I didn’t know exactly what to do so
I stayed next to the wreckage, there was still enough supplies in the galley. My
dog and I stayed there until three days later. An Erusean soldier found us,
killed my dog and was about to kill me before Avril and Tabloid and some others
found me.”
“Ah Yes, the Penal unit, go on”
“They took me in and had me join their group of survivors, We
were a group loyal to no real nation –“ she laughed softly to herself at the
seemingly unlikelihood of events “- we had Eruseans like myself, Belkans,
Oseans, even a Yuktobanian and Sapaniard. It was thanks to the Air support from
some of your fighters we even made it off that island alive.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but Is it true you actually charged
a tank? There were some conflicting reports on the subject from our pilots in
the air” the Officer asked, slightly bemused at the thought.
“Well, it was either that or we all die” She bitterly responded
before continuing.
“As I was saying, we found a boat and was able to cast off
heading north. I don’t exactly know why Avril chose the Lighthouse but we
arrived on the thirtieth. There we found a Belkan scientist that was working on
my countries unmanned combat drone projects and the family of one of the best
pilots my country had seen. Doctor Schroeder explained what had happened. My
friend Ionela even took a gun to his research.” She smiled at the bittersweet
memory.
“The next day of course is what you do really care about
right? Well Im sure you already know what happened in the air, but on the ground,
it was chaos. We had no warning, we were lucky to evacuate as many people to
shelter as possible, but we didn’t get everyone. Your pilot Tabloid was killed.
And even I was lucky to survive. I took one stupid chance and tried to sabotage
the Elevator, which I guess was enough for your pilots to finally kill that
flying weapon. It was only by luck I wasn’t killed when one of your planes
exploded next to me-“
She thought back on it. It was the highest she had ever been
while still in a building. The horizon seemed to stretch forever. She watched the Allied fighters destroy the
last of the drones before she leaned over the railing and fell. Seconds later
she felt an immense pressure followed by an extreme cold as the helmet was
ripped off her, the sudden shock and hypoxia onset dazed her enough that the suit
sensed it and compensated. Her only saving grace was the mixture of her falling
away from the windbreak and the suit automatically deploying the parachute. It
was only after the fact she found out what had happened.
“-and I will have you know, it did ruin my hair. Still a bit
upset about that” she joked, catching the officer off guard.
The Officer regained bearing, nodded, jotted a few things
down on a piece of paper before putting his notes in the folder, closing it
then standing up and reached out his hand
“Miss D’Elise, I would like to thankyou for your testimony. As
I’m sure you know a lot of infrastructure on both sides was damaged, so this
process has been a bit more analog then we are used to. If you will come with
me, we have a staff car that will take you back to your residence.”
Cossette shook the officer’s hand and followed him down the
hallway exiting the building.
Outside true to his word a car was waiting with a driver, before
going her separate way she turned to the Officer.
“One last thing” she asked the Officer
“What’s that?”
“Could I get the information of your pilots who led the
assault?”
He looked at her puzzled
“I would like to thank them. They are the reason we can even
have a civil discussion” She clarified.
The officer smiled putting on a pair of aviators.
“I’m sure that can be arranged”
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